Cement Lining in Attic!?

[drgorsky]

I've recently bought a house in need of much work. It's obvious that someone has made a botched effort at DIY in the past with obscure piping and wiring throughout the house. However the real surprise is in the attic. Someone has lined the gap between the joists with plastic and filled the void with a cement like mixture! It's perhaps not as heavy as you'd expect cement to be but it's not light either, I would say too heavy to be resting on the ceiling plaster. Curiously, it only covers about a quarter of the attic floor space, I don't know if that's intentional or they just got bored half way through putting the stuff down. Nobody I've spoken to has seen anything like this before. So If anybody has any suggestions as to what this substance could be and why it's there I would greatly appreciate it!

You can see what I'm talking about in these pictures:

Untitled

• drgorsky
• 9 Dec 2011
• 1

Untitled

• drgorsky
• 9 Dec 2011
• 1

Thanks in advance!

 

[ibby]

maybe they thought by filling the gaps inbetween the joist they could use it as another room

 

[Alastairreid]

Looks like that spray foam stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Sprayfoam69#p/u

 

[Alastairreid]

maybe they thought by filling the gaps inbetween the joist they could use it as another room

if that was the case the insulation would be betwen the rafters, certainly not that stuff though.

 

[drgorsky]

Someone suggested it might be loose polystyrene insulation that has been mixed with cement to keep it in place, so it wouldn't shift in a draft. It's certainly not foam insulation, it's a dusty stone like substance, cement, concrete or something along those lines. In any case after a lot of messy, dusty work it's all gone now! I can only assume that some genius thought they'd come up with an alternative to loft insulation...or perhaps even flooring!